4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Cyber Chook]

I have a water butt that collects rain water from my garden shed, which is right by my chicken run. It's at the end of the garden, so it's a lot more convenient ,and easy to top up the chickens' Glug with the water butt water, than traipse up and down across the London clay that is my lawn, with jugs of water. We don't have an outside tap, so can't use a hose easily, either.

 

My question is, am I taking any kind of a risk with using this water? I see my chooks drinking from the dirtiest puddles they can possibly find, when they're free-roaming around the garden, but on a day-to-day basis, I just wondered what people's thoughts are on the water-butt water.

 

EVery now and then I completely empty it, so it can fill with fresher rain water. So far they've been fine, but I don't know if there are any drawbacks or potential diseases they could contract from it?

 

Thanks for any comments you might have.

 

Caroline

[Snowy]

As long as the water is not stagnant it is fine. I give mine water from the water butt. They much prefer it to tap water!

[Egluntyne]

Mine prefer muddy puddle water to clean tap water any day, so as Snowy says, as long as it isn't stagnant, it should be fine.

 

Save your legs, and the lawn.

[Cyber Chook]

Thanks guys. It does get a bit smelly, I must say, but not green or algae-ish. When it starts smelling a bit whiffy, I empty it out and start again. So I'll carry on, cheers, and the lawn will be grateful. BTW, I just rescued some brand new rolls of turf from a skip round the corner, having been tipped off by someone on Freecycle, to lay on to the bare mud patches left from when we moved the run. There we were on Christmas Day evening, loading up the boot of the car under cover of darkness while most normal people were in relaxing, watching Christmas films and drinking their Baileys... the lawn looks fantastic now. Hopefully the turf will survive.

 

Good old Freecycle, I love it!

 

Caroline

[HENthusiastic]

HI.

I used to use water from my water but. I spoke to my avian vet about it and she recommended against it. She said it is too easy for the water to be contaminated. Mine collects from the garage roof and she also mentioned bird poo etc landing on the roof and then the water runs through this and into the butt. I do think her main concern was the stagnancy though. I've stopped using my water butt. Ive got an ex batt girl who is fairly frequently ill and I just don't want to take any risks. My vet said that dirty puddles are not usually as old as water butt water. Maybe its okay as you empty it often though.

[Gallina]

I wouldn't do it, and I agree with the last comment.

 

Mine don't like clean water either, but I wouldn't give them bird poo in liquid form, which is what you are doing if you use water from a water butt.

 

I am not sure what diseases survive in water, but humans get cholera in this way, so I wouldn't take a chance. Definitely don't do it if bird flu rears its ugly head again.

[Egluntyne]

I wouldn't do it, and I agree with the last comment.

 

Mine don't like clean water either, but I wouldn't give them bird poo in liquid form, which is what you are doing if you use water from a water butt.

 

I am not sure what diseases survive in water, but humans get cholera in this way, so I wouldn't take a chance. Definitely don't do it if bird flu rears its ugly head again.

 

I was assuming the water butt was covered. Good point Gallina, about the dilute bird poo.

[Lesley]

We use water butts for all ours - but we haven't connected any guttering from the roofs for the reason stated above........diluted bird poo from the aviary roof would contaminate the water.

 

We do though use a covered butt and fill them from the hose-pipe - it makes for far less travelling with water We have them attached to a drinker with a ball valve in which automatically tops them up - but that is because we have 6 of them.

 

If you want to use the water butt, just use a new one which isn't connected to any guttering, fill from a hose-pipe and use the tap on it to fill up the glug.

[Gallina]

It doesn't make any difference whether the water butt is covered or not!

 

We have birds sitting on our roof all the time: great big wood pigeons, presumably poo-ing all day just like the hens. It then rains, and I assume that the poo gets washed into the water butts. Great for fertilizing the garden, so only a problem if you drink the stuff.

 

I may be neurotic here. But it is so easy to get water from the tap, I don't see the point of giving them water that could be contaminated.

[Lesley]

It doesn't make any difference whether the water butt is covered or not!

 

It does make a difference if the water butt isn't connected to anything like guttering - which is what I said.

 

Ours are covered, not connected to anything and we only fill them from a hose-pipe.

 

We use them because we have 6 separate pens each with its own water supply.

[Snowy]

Gosh I hadn't thought about washing the bird poo off the roof! My waterbutt is filled from the roof of the chicken run only (corrugated plastic) and birds don't tend to land on it, but obviously it could have bird poo on it I'll save it for the garden in future - sorry for the dodgy advice!

[Egluntyne]

I imagine muddy puddles will have a drop or two of dilute bird poo in them when you come to think about it. *shrugs*

 

Time to worry is when there is a bird flu warning....and as we will be keeping them under cover then, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Cyber Chook]

I used to use water from my water but. I spoke to my avian vet about it and she recommended against it. She said it is too easy for the water to be contaminated. Mine collects from the garage roof and she also mentioned bird poo etc landing on the roof and then the water runs through this and into the butt.

 

Yes, good point

 

Filling a new, unconnected, covered water butt with fresh water covers most of the problems, doesn't it, as long as I don't allow it to get stagnant. I'll buy a little one...more expense !!

 

Thank you, everyone, all these comments have been useful, and food for thought.

 

I agree with you, Egluntine, about the muddly puddles also probably containing some wild bird poo. I supose the thing is, the chickens would be drinking from various other sources as well, whereas the contaminated water-butt water is their main daily supply.

 

Any microbiologists out there?! It'd be interesting to know how long avian-disease-spreading bacteria can survive in water - not a sentence I imagined I'd be writing one day

 

Caroline